Abused then arrested: inside California's crackdown on sex work

But Alix Lutnick, a researcher with RTI International and expert on trafficking, said that there is growing recognition that john stings don’t actually help victims – and can instead lead to their arrest. “What we hear from people who are selling sex is that these type of ‘end demand’ initiatives end up resulting in more harms for the very people we are purportedly trying to protect.”